Search form

Thanks for Nothing, Sandra Day O'Connor

Want to receive our daily political roundup in your inbox? Sign up for Ringside Seat by creating an account at the Prospecthere and ticking off "Ringside Seat" in the Newsletter-subscription options.

For many—most?—liberals, the aftermath of the 2000 election is like an old injury that won't heal. Most of the time you don't think about it, but if someone touches it, the old pain flares up again. Despite Antonin Scalia's frequent admonition to "Get over it!", doing so is awfully hard. Had George W. Bush been a run-of-the-mill Republican president, it might have been easier. But he wasn't; he was an epically awful president whose ability to cut such a far-reaching path of destruction made him exceptional.

Which is why so many of us were unimpressed when Sandra Day O'Connor, after years of defending the Supreme Court's intervention in Bush v. Gore, told the Chicago Tribune, "Maybe the court should have said, 'We're not going to take it, goodbye,'" since the case "gave the Court a less-than-perfect reputation." You don't say.

At the time, you may remember, O'Connor was eager to avoid a Gore presidency. Attending a party on election night, she reportedly exclaimed "This is terrible" when early reports showed Gore winning Florida; her husband explained that she was hoping to retire, but couldn't if a Democrat would be in the White House. She got her chance later, after signing on to one of the most disgraceful, unprincipled decisions in the history of American jurisprudence.

The fact that O'Connor was replaced by the doctrinaire conservative Samuel Alito doesn't mean she was some kind of liberal while on the Court. And as some have pointed out, many of the areas in which she steered a moderate course are being dismantled by Alito, whose ascension was made possible by Bush v. Gore. So don't feel sorry for her; she went on her way to a pleasant retirement. It was the rest of us who paid the price.

WHAT WE'RE WRITING

The sequester strikes again. Scott Lemieuxnotes that the tightening of federal funds will cripple the accused's Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial and adequate representation.

The Tea Party has been scary for the sane and the liberal for a long time. A new report on the upstart pseudo-movement has come out, and Abby Rapoportwrites that it's time for the GOP to join in the fear-fest.

WHAT WE'RE READING

Neda Semnani on how Hollywood just can't get female journalists right anymore: "Whereas being a female reporter was once synonymous with tenacity, superior intellect, and wit, today's fictional female reporter serves as shorthand for new media reporter/blogger: young, naïve, and morally bankrupt."

Temp agencies are at the heart of a new boom in wage theft and labor exploitation, and in cities like Chicago, raiteros are their veins and arteries.

Economists Reinhart and Rogoff have been discredited, but austerity rushes on. The next front, it seems, is "policy uncertainty"—a term that, as Wonkblog notes, should hold just as little capital.

The president will soon be pushing for a new head of the Federal Communications Commission, and despite the sad, monopolistic state of our telecommunications industry, Obama's pick will almost certainly be industry insider Tom Wheeler rather than equality crusader Susan Crawford.

A new study confirms that the backlash against voter-suppression laws increased the proportion of minorities who voted in 2012.

Possibly in light of last week's doomsaying by Max Baucus, Obama went on air to say that the health-care law is doing fine, that it'll be implemented fully in 2014, and that nobody needs to worry.

POLL OF THE DAY

According to a new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation, more than four in ten Americans think that the Affordable Care Act has been overturned or repealed. That could be a good thing given that 40 percent of Americans have an unfavorable view of the law, compared with 35 percent who have a favorable view of the law. But more likely, it just means that when the benighted four-in-ten start reaping the rewards of Obamacare, they won't know whom to thank.

About the Author

Paul Waldman is a weekly columnist and senior writer for The American Prospect. He also writes for the Plum Line blog at The Washington Post and The Week and is the author of Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success.